A major fire, apparently caused by a blast, ripped through an old three-storey building in Kaman Bazar, the prime business hub of the town, in the early hours of Monday leaving one person grievously injured, completely gutting a vacant garment shop on the ground floor and destroying the whole building beyond recognition.
Several shops and buildings in the vicinity got damaged in the incident. The scene of the blast presented a ghastly picture resembling an earthquake ravaged site with the pillars of the building crumbling on to the streets and shutters of the garment shop lying scattered in front of the devastated building.
Residents of Kaman Bazar woke up to a deafening sound at around 4.30 a.m. and several of them ran out of their houses fearing some catastrophic incident. The police and fire fighters rushed to the scene and rescued an injured person trapped amid the debris of the collapsed building, sources said. He was shifted to the district headquarters hospital where his condition was stated to be stable.
Numerous speculations
A fire tender swiftly reached the spot and brought the fire under control. The police identified the injured person as Srinivas, a tenant, who ran a garment outlet from the shop in the ground floor of the old building until a few days ago, sources said.
Police sources maintained that a cylinder or electric transformer blast may have caused the blaze.
However, the intensity of the devastation triggered doubts about a conspiracy angle indicating use of explosive material. Business rivalry and the role of a hostile tenant may have led to the incident, sources added.
Khammam Police Commissioner Tafseer Iqbal examined the site and directed the CLUES team personnel to collect the samples for sending them to the Forensic Science Laboratory in Hyderabad for determining the exact cause of the blast. A fear-stricken trader of the area said he heard two blasts in the early hours of the day and came out of his house along with his family members in panic. “I found the old building housing a vacant garment shop reduced to debris with thick smoke billowing out of the spot,” he said with fear writ large on his face.
Case registered
When contacted, Khammam Assistant Police Commissioner, G Venkat Rao told The Hindu that a case under IPC Section 436 (mischief by fire or explosive substance with intent to destroy house, etc.) has been registered and a detailed investigation is underway.